Ref level volume

[JasonJCarney]

Just curious here. I watch movies at the -20 to -24 range on my avr. Any idea what % of rated power I'm using? What level is your volume knob at?

[Groomlakearea51]

Probably somewhere around about 10-15% of the continous rated max RMS output. I had a "sliding scale" excel program that allowed me to "plug" in the max RMS power vs the dB of suppression for the amps, but cannot find it. I think that the Sansui "knob" was 100 watts at -0dB, 50 watts at -6dB, 25 watts at -12dB, 12 watts at -18dB, 6 watts at -24dB, and so on down to about 0.001 at -70 or -80 db, dependent on where the max dB of suppression was used by the manufacturer.

[willland]

Jason,

If I had to guess, I would say you are pumping out no more than 50 watts RMS with maybe 85 watts peaks when the loud action comes on. Remember, adding the sub takes away a bunch of the power robbing from the receiver. I had a vintage Denon POA-1500 amp(sold to Jtubbs) amp with power meters hooked up to my Fortes(98dB) and never saw them rise above 100 watts even during loud musical peaks. You would be surprised how little clean wattage will produce loud spl's.

What level is your volume knob at?

During normal TV watching, I set master volume at -45 and for HT usually -35 to -25 based on type of movie. These are plenty loud at my seating position at 10.5 feet from center channel. My room is 16.5 x 32 with a 10ft to 12ft tray ceiling(+/- 6000 cu.ft.).

Bill

[Quiet_Hollow]

The volume knob means nothing in terms of power. The source actually dictates how hard the amp works.

If the reference settings on the receiver haven't been tared, and you fed the Onkyo a 0 dB signal (very unlikely) with the volume set at -20 dB, the amp would be putting out 1 watt to an 8 ohm load.

*edit* For listening to TV and music, my receiver is typically set to -60 dB. When watching Blu-ray it's usually around -43 dB. THX reference levels on my sofa are reached with the receiver volume set at -32 dB (no provision to re-scale to 0). I've confirmed with meters and white noise that at that setting, the La Scalas are using 2W and my sub is using ~10W.

[psg]

Just curious here. I watch movies at the -20 to -24 range on my avr. Any idea what % of rated power I'm using? What level is your volume knob at?

-20 dB is 1%, so if your AVR was rated at 100WPC (for example), then peaks would reach 1 Watt and the rest of the program much lower (maybe 0.1 Watt typical). -24 dB is another 4 dB below, or 1/2.5 of 1W equals 0.4W peaks. These are order of magnitude estimates because your volume calibration might be off, the source might never reach the maximum of the input and rated power varies with the impedence of the load (as Quiet_Hollow has already pointed out).

I listen to jazz trios that have no drums at -40 dB or so, so 1/10000 of 100W is 0.01W peaks.

[JasonJCarney]

Interesting. Not sure I fully understand but interesting none the less. Thx for the replies.

[psg]

It's exponential growth. An increase of 10dB requires 10 times the power, and so another increase of 10 dB requires another 10 times the power over the first increase:

• 10 dB increase is 10 times the power,
• 20 dB increase is 100 times the power,
• 30 dB increase is 1000 times the power.

That's why there's very little sound output difference going from say a 70W amp to a 110W amp. So your volume dial at -20 dB (or 20 dB below maximum if 0 dB is the maximum) is 1/100 of the maximum power.

[Heritage_Head]

Just curious here. I watch movies at the -20 to -24 range on my avr. Any idea what % of rated power I'm using? What level is your volume knob at?

You could use a db meter put it 1 meter away and start there.
Everyone’s set up is different some use the eq in the avr some don’t and so on.